Fran Brown impact felt from afar on National Signing Day

ATHENS, Ga. — One of the most important people in building Georgia’s signing class for 2024 wasn’t with the Bulldogs on Wednesday. That’s because Fran Brown, former UGA defensive backs coach, was in his new position already, having been hired as the next head coach at Syracuse earlier in the month.

Brown worked primarily with the cornerbacks during his time in Athens. That didn’t stop him from building relationships with others though. Safety signee KJ Bolden credited Brown as a big part of his recruitment. The same is true for linemen Jordan Thomas and Nyier Daniels, the top two players out of New Jersey respectively who Brown helped secure as well.

Of course though, the cornerbacks is where Brown spent the majority of his time recruiting, and he did a phenomenal job with that group as well. Georgia was able to sign the nation’s No. 1 corner Ellis Robinson, plus a pair of top 125 prospects at the position as well with Demello Jones and Ondre Evans.

“Fran was unbelievable. He came here with a purpose,” Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said when asked about Brown and the impact he had on the class on Wednesday. “He told every kid he recruited he wanted to be a head coach, said, ‘I want to be at Georgia until I’m a head coach, and I want to be a head coach, and if I get to be a head coach, then I’m leaving Georgia, but I’m going to leave Georgia in a better place than I found it.’ He did everything he said he was going to do, and we did everything we said we were going to do in terms of preparing him for that and giving him the pedigree of a National Championship and the way to run a program.”

Brown’s hiring at Syracuse was announced prior to the SEC Championship Game. After the Bulldogs lost to Alabama, he headed north and didn’t come back. Working on his own recruiting class – one that added six commitments since his hiring and picked up several standouts from the transfer portal including Ohio State quarterback Kyle McCord, Texas A&M EDGE Fadil Diggs and a pair of Georgia receivers (Jackson Meeks and Yazeed Haynes) – Brown still had great things to say about UGA. He reminded several of his Georgia commits about why it was that the Bulldogs were their best option and even hosted Bolden on an official visit where it seems he did the same. Then, Georgia went out and hired its next defensive backs coach, USC’s Donte Williams.

“It was a very smooth transition. He (Brown) communicated very well to the guys that he helped recruit, but it wasn’t like he lied to any of them,” Smart said. “Every one of them, they told us, ‘Yep, he told us if he got a head job then he’d go but that you and Coach Muschamp were going to be in the secondary with us.’ So we then went out and looked for what we needed, really said, ‘We want somebody that can develop and teach corner play,’ because Coach Muschamp and I work hard with the safeties. And we wanted somebody that could form relationships like Fran.”

“Fran was a very relationship driven person,” Smart continued. “He spent a lot of time communicating with kids, not just KJ but a lot of kids. He formed solid relationships and we wanted somebody that could do those same things. Donte has proven he can do that, and he’s a really good football coach.”

As for the high caliber cornerbacks Brown got committed to Georgia, Smart is excited about them too.

“What stands out about Ellis? His length, his character, his family. His parents made sacrifices. They sent their son to IMG to grow and get better, and I don’t know if he’s the person he is and the player he is if he doesn’t go down there and get to go against the best in the country,” Smart said of Robinson. “He played with Daylen (Everette), played with all those kids. He’s basically been in college for two to three years. He’s a wonderful, wonderful kid who, he has high expectations and we have high expectations, but he’s going to work to get better and develop within our program. We’re very excited to have him.”

“Oh, it’s fast. I mean, they can go out and run a 4×1 team and probably win a national event because they can fly,” he added about the secondary class as a whole. “They’ve all got good speed. Demello’s a track guy, can run. Ondre Evans can run, Ellis can run, and KJ runs track and can run. They all four have got great speed. They all four have really good length. I think the wing span on Ellis and those guys is extremely long. They’re all tremendous character kids. I mean, like, they’re fun to be around. Demello is a fun guy to be around. Those other guys are fun guys to be around.”